“Little did I think the day would ever come when I’d be glad of the sight of a Sloane,” said Priscilla, as they crossed the campus, “but I’d welcome Charlie’s goggle eyes almost ecstatically. At least, they’d be familiar eyes.”
“Oh,” sighed Anne. “I can’t describe how I felt when I was standing there, waiting my turn to be registered—as insignificant as the teeniest drop in a most enormous bucket. It’s bad enough to feel insignificant, but it’s unbearable to have it grained into your soul that you will never, can never, be anything but insignificant, and that is how I did feel—as if I were invisible to the naked eye and some of those Sophs might step on me. I knew I would go down to my grave unwept, unhonored and unsung.”
“Wait till next year,” comforted Priscilla. “Then we’ll be able to look as bored and sophisticated as any Sophomore of them all. No doubt it is rather dreadful to feel insignificant; but I think it’s better than to feel as big and awkward as I did—as if I were sprawled all over Redmond. That’s how I felt—I suppose because I was a good two inches taller than any one else in the crowd. I wasn’t afraid a Soph might walk over me; I was afraid they’d take me for an elephant, or an overgrown sample of a potato-fed Islander.”
“I suppose the trouble is we can’t forgive big Redmond for not being little Queen’s,” said Anne, gathering about her the shreds of her old cheerful philosophy to cover her nakedness of spirit. “When we left Queen’s we knew everybody and had a place of our own. I suppose we have been unconsciously expecting to take life up at Redmond just where we left off at Queen’s, and now we feel as if the ground had slipped from under our feet. I’m thankful that neither Mrs. Lynde nor Mrs. Elisha Wright know, or ever will know, my state of mind at present. They would exult in saying ‘I told you so,’ and be convinced it was the beginning of the end. Whereas it is just the end of the beginning.”
“Exactly. That sounds more Anneish. In a little while we’ll be acclimated and acquainted, and all will be well. Anne, did you notice the girl who stood alone just outside the door of the coeds’ dressing room all the morning—the pretty one with the brown eyes and crooked mouth?”
“Yes, I did. I noticed her particularly because she seemed the only creature there who looked as lonely and friendless as I felt. I had you, but she had no one.”
“I think she felt pretty all-by-herselfish, too. Several times I saw her make a motion as if to cross over to us, but she never did it—too shy, I suppose. I wished she would come. If I hadn’t felt so much like the aforesaid elephant I’d have gone to her. But I couldn’t lumber across that big hall with all those boys howling on the stairs. She was the prettiest freshette I saw today, but probably favor is deceitful and even beauty is vain on your first day at Redmond,” concluded Priscilla with a laugh.
“I’m going across to Old St. John’s after lunch,” said Anne. “I don’t know that a graveyard is a very good place to go to get cheered up, but it seems the only get-at-able place where there are trees, and trees I must have. I’ll sit on one of those old slabs and shut my eyes and imagine I’m in the Avonlea woods.”
Anne did not do that, however, for she found enough of interest in Old St. John’s to keep her eyes wide open. They went in by the entrance gates, past the simple, massive, stone arch surmounted by the great lion of England.
“‘And on Inkerman yet the wild bramble is gory,
And those bleak heights henceforth shall be famous in story,’”